Gary F, list
There is no need to sneer at or belittle those who work in the
pragmatic areas of information research [which you consider
'esoteric' ; what an astonishing opinion ?!] - and other areas, such
as biology, organic chemistry, economics, neurological and cognition
- and who use or could use, the powerful analytic infrastructure of
Peirce.
Just because YOU personally don't find such work of interest, or
informative, or empirical [??!!] does not mean that this work is not
informative, interesting or - empirically based.
The whole point of this list is that ALL of us are interested "in
reading what Peirce had to say about phenomenology, phaneroscopy,
philosophy, logic as semeiotic, pragmaticism, maybe even metaphysics,
and maybe even hoping to learn something new from it"
And what Peirce spent most of his life on - was the pragmatics of
this infrastructure - which means, using it to examine and explore
and explain our world. Surely he did not spend his life working at
something that would remain confined to his words!
I am aware that for many people, a focus on terminology is enough
for them. I'm not belittling them - as you do those who choose to
work in pragmatics. But some of us would like to see HOW the
Peircean basic infrastructure can be used to examine and explain the
real world of material objects and cognition - and outside of the
seminar room. And when we introduce such a focus - it would be
'nice', on this list, if we were met with some acceptance - and were
not sneered at or belittled.
Edwina
On Sat 30/03/19 3:21 PM , g...@gnusystems.ca sent:
I'm going to assume that some members of the Peirce list are still
interested in reading what Peirce had to say about phenomenology,
phaneroscopy, philosophy, logic as semeiotic, pragmaticism, maybe
even metaphysics, and maybe even hoping to learn something new from
it. Perhaps these subjects, to which Peirce devoted most of his time,
are not “of true lasting importance,” but I must confess to
finding Peirce’s work in these areas more interesting, more
informative, and even more empirical than such esoterica as the
thermodynamics of majority-logic decoding in information erasure.
I don’t have time right now to study closely Jon's suggestions
regarding the "Logical Analysis of Signs," but i can't help noticing
that his thread dovetails with this one in several ways. For
instance, his most recent post deals with connectedness between
signs at various levels of semiosis, considered as manifestations of
continuity. This is related to the Peirce text I’m posting today,
which again deals with the “valency” hypothesis in phaneroscopy,
but makes an important distinction between that and the kind of
valency we find in Existential Graphs. This text is from from
“πλ” (MS 295), CP 1.292; according to the CP Bibliography and
the Robin list, this is part of a draft of the “Prolegomena”
published in the Monist for October 1906. (This text in CP 1.288-92
is dated “c. 1908,” but that is a mistake, probably a typo for
“1906”.)
[[ If, then, there be any formal division of elements of the
phaneron, there must be a division according to valency; and we may
expect medads, monads, dyads, triads, tetrads, etc. Some of these,
however, can be antecedently excluded, as impossible; although it is
important to remember that these divisions are not exactly like the
corresponding divisions of Existential Graphs, which have relation
only to explicit indefinites. In the present application, a medad
must mean an indecomposable idea altogether severed logically from
every other; a monad will mean an element which, except that it is
thought as applying to some subject, has no other characters than
those which are complete in it without any reference to anything
else; a dyad will be an elementary idea of something that would
possess such characters as it does possess relatively to something
else but regardless of any third object of any category; a triad
would be an elementary idea of something which should be such as it
were relatively to two others in different ways, but regardless of
any fourth; and so on. Some of these, I repeat, are plainly
impossible. A medad would be a flash of mental “heat-lightning”
absolutely instantaneous, thunderless, unremembered, and altogether
without effect. It can further be said in advance, not, indeed,
purely a priori but with the degree of apriority that is proper to
logic, namely, as a necessary deduction from the fact that there are
signs, that there must be an elementary triad. For were every element
of the phaneron a monad or a dyad, without the relative of teridentity
(which is, of course, a triad), it is evident that no triad could ever
be built up. Now the relation of every sign to its object and
interpretant is plainly a triad. A triad might be built up of pentads
or of any higher perissad elements in many ways. But it can be proved
— and really with extreme simplicity, though the statement of the
general proof is confusing — that no element can have a higher
valency than three. ]]
In chemistry, a medad is an atom of valency zero, i.e. an
“inert” element, one that does not combine with others to form
new molecules. In Existential Graphs, a medad represents a rhema with
no open blanks or unsaturated bonds or “loose ends”; thus a
complete proposition is a medad because its predicate already has all
the subjects its valency allows, with no openings for more. But in
phaneroscopy, “a medad must mean an indecomposable idea altogether
severed logically from every other” — and it is “impossible,”
according to Peirce, for the phaneron to contain a medad, because it
would have no relation to anything (not even to itself, being
“instantaneous”). “A medad would be a flash of mental
“heat-lightning” absolutely instantaneous, thunderless,
unremembered, and altogether without effect.” In other words it
would not “appear” “before the mind” at all, I suppose
because appearing before the mind necessarily implies having some
effect on it.
Together with the “proven” fact that no element can have a
higher valency than three, this leads to the a priori conclusion that
the three indecomposable elements of the phaneron must correspond to
chemical elements of valency one, two, and three, i.e. to monads,
dyads and triads. It seems to follow that a Priman, or First, would
be represented in Existential Graphs by a Spot with one Peg, which
may have a line of identity attached to it, but only if the other end
of that line is a loose end. For instance, a Priman such as the color
of a stick of sealing wax could be represented by a Spot (labelled
“red”) with a line of identity (meaning “something exists”)
attached to its one Peg, so that the graph may be translated as
“Something is red.” But this only goes to show that a monad in
EGs is different from a monad in phaneroscopy. In the latter, a monad
is a First, and “ Firstness is that which is such as it is
positively and regardless of anything else” (EP2:267). In its mode
of being, it is a possibility. But the EG monad, asserting that
something is red, represents more than a possibility; moreover, it
has an evident duality, as there is some kind of Secondness or
difference between the Spot and the line of identity. This, I take
it, is why Peirce observes that “these [phaneroscopic] divisions
are not exactly like the corresponding divisions of Existential
Graphs.” The nature of this difference will be explored in the rest
of this series.
One other problem arises in Peirce’s paragraph above, concerning
“the relative of teridentity (which is, of course, a triad).” My
next post or two will have more to say about this, but for now I’d
just like to point out that the graph of teridentity (i.e. three-way
identity), which occurs when a line of identity branches , cannot
represent the basic triadic sign relation, because the Sign, Object
and Interpretant are not identical to one another. — Or are they,
in some sense? Perhaps we should leave this question open, for now.
Gary f.
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